it's been a while

ciao tutti!

sorry that i have been slacking so much! but hey, aren't you glad i'm too occupied to be connected to this cyber world all the time?!?! yeah you are!

today was the last day of my program, so i though it fitting to write a bit! but let me back up a bit...

let's see, after spring break we had some wonderful excursions with the group. we visited a "cinta senese" farm, which is a special, rare type of pig that produces pork and lard that is "good" for you, so they say...i'm not really sure how good lard is for you, but apparently it's packed with omega-3's....then we went to a goat farm which was lead by a lovely lady who talked a lot about "balance". A wonderful spirit raising goats! After that we had a lovely appertivo at a little farm house in the middle of the Tuscan hills. All the food was from the farms we had visited and was AMAZING! Homegrown and organic!

Also visited a winery where the man in charge was fabulous and extraordinarily passionate about his wine. We drank some wine that is apparently sold at $150-$250 a bottle in the states....and it was fabulous. I could even taste the differences between the different years. Be proud mom, be proud.

Next we had a tour with my art history class of the Uffizi Galleries in firenze. Saw the Birth of Venus and La Primavera by Sandra Botticelli. Loveliest paintings and it was surreal to actually see them! Afterwards some friends and i paid 6.50 euro to see the David by Micheangolo, but it was WORTH IT! He is 14ft of man smooth marble perfection! I don't think i've ever stared at a piece of art work for so long.....

Another weekend we were taken to a lovely, lovely beach after a drive through some of the most beautiful country side i've seen. Spring is definitely here and things are getting green green green. And the smells and colors and sounds! There is a flower called wysteria that I've never seen in the states, but it is a lovely soft violet color and smells like venus herself. Anyway, at the beach we made a makeshift volley ball net and had a grand time playing beach volley. I went swimming, but man it was chilly!

We had easter break and 3 friends, Jake, Maraya, Lindsay and I rented a Fiat Panda and drove all the way to Barcelona!! Everyone doubted us, oh yes, but we made it with no problem! Had a grand time in Barcelona, ate delicious mexican food and danced to aretha franklin till 6 in the morning! Beautiful drive across the south of France and the western coast of Italia!

Life in siena has been normal but wonderful. We've made some good Italian friends and gotten closer to the other Americans in our program. I've made some great friends! We've got our favorite bars and cafès, and the owners of our favorite dives know us! My host family is lovely as ever, my "babo" makes fun of me all the time; there is a lot of laughing at dinner! Mattia and Niccolo are as adorable and mischievous as ever! I've even been able to start talking with them a little! It's extremely gratifying to speak Italian, I'm still not there yet, but I'm shocked at the nuances that I can understand when I hear people speaking!

So today arrived the last day for Lewis and Clark students. We had a beautiful lunch at this restaurant way out in the country. It was the most beautiful spot I've seen in Tuscany so far. Everyone drank a lot of wine and got real emotional, Jim and Mike gave speeches. It was a lovely event. Said goodbye to some friends. It's strange to think of people being back in Portland/America. Those places don't exist to me! haha. I've still got a few more days here, then I'm off to Sweden!!

Until then,

un bacio

"sei una vera siciliana" part one

madonna! mamma mia! dio mio! madonna santa! minkia!......

Ok, don't say that last one because it happens to be sicilian for "mother f*****". See, i'm learning all sorts of important things......

Just re-arrived in siena from 10 "fantastichissime" days in giro in Sicily. An interesting, hot, poor, beautiful, savage, sinful, gritty place. We started our journey spending the night in the roma aeroporta...bruttissimo, but it had to be done. My travel group was myself, Jenny, her friend Jenny, Mauria, and Alex, all fellow lc'ers. Good group. We arrived in Palermo early on saturday, made our way to out hostel, Hotel Firenze, and settled in to nap for a little bit. Palermo is a wonderful city. Unfortunately we did see too much of all the monuments, churches, ecc that you are supposed to see, but that was ok with me because honestly, I am getting a little worn out on frescoes of madonna and child....anyway, I made some connections with two palermitano boys through this online organization called "Couch Surfing". Simply put it's a global community of travels looking to share experiences, meet each other while traveling, find free places to stay (hence couch surfing), and other wonderful things like that. So first we met up with Davide and two of his friends, who were very "buf0" (funny). Later that night we met up with Pietro. He took Jenny, Alex, and I to the most fantastic party. I'm convinced that the apartment it was in is hidden, sort of like the leaky cauldron. It was called "left" and the best way i can explain it was a place for the leftist-artistic youth of Palermo. It was fantastic! There was all this anti-fascist, anti-Bush, pro-Obama, pro-global community propaganda on the walls, and lots of Italian hipsters dancing and drinking and making merry. Fantastic. One of Pietro's friends was very upset with me that I am not a vegetarian and he would not have my argument about how the cultivation of soy beans is terrible for the environment....mind you this is all in Italian!

The next day we went to Mondello, a beach nearby. Beautiful turquoise waters!! I was a "pazza" (crazy) and went swimming. Yes, it was freezing but it was too big of a temptation. Saw a beautiful sunset behind the hills. Stayed in the town for a bit a sipped wine by the water. Ate delicious pizza with eggplant and also a brioche stuffed with gelato....mmmm. Yes, I am getting fat. Maybe not, but I feel like I should be!

Off on a hydrofoil the next day to Salina, one of the Aeolian islands. The ride was a bit of an "incubo" (nightmare) because hydrofoils are the faster of the two options, so the ride was ridiculously choppy! But also beautiful, the sunset over the vast sea. We finally arrived in Salina, a little nauseous to say the least. We went into a little "alimentare" (grocery store) to ask directions to a hostel we looked up. No one seemed to know where it was, so I called them and found out that they didn't open until after Easter......I told this to the friendly man behind the counter, he called a friend, and a few minutes later told us that someone was coming to pick us up and take us to their hostel!! Now that's hospitality. A younger woman showed up and took us to what seemed to be her parents house, that had a back room converted into a hostel. It was perfect, we even had our own private terrace that looked over the sea and a neighboring island!! Che belleza. We had fun cooking our own dinner, drinking wine, and sitting out on the terrace.

Two days later we took off for another island, Stromboli, which is the most active volcano, I think in the world! It explodes every ten to twenty minutes. We settled in to an even more adorable hostel and started to explore the town. A man we had met on the ferry who is a geologist, gave us the name of guide we could meet to get an excursion up the volcano. We ended up at this geological center and a nice lady invited us in to teach us about Stromboli and show us a movie. The guide wasn't going up that day, nor were we very prepared to hike all the way up to the summit, so we decided we would do the 400 metre hike, which you can do without a guide. While we were back at our hostel eating lunch and getting ready for our hike, we kept hearing rumbling noises. It was kind of blustery out so we thought at first it was thunder, but then we thought it was just construction. It wasn't till about 10 or so rumbles later that I realized it was actually the volcano exploding!!! Mamma mia! So we hiked an exploding volcano.....I was a little terrified, but more thrilled! We hiked up at sunset and walked down in the dark with the full moon illuminating the sea, the clouds, and our path.

The next day we frolicked in the surf, collected beach glass, soaked up the sun, and hopped on a slow ferry back to the mainland. And what a ride it was! We happened to be the only tourists on the ferry, so the crew members of course started flirting with us, and invited us to come up to the bridge! It was an amazing view; we could see Stromboli smoking off in the distance. Saw one of the more beautiful sunsets with blackening islands in the foreground. Passed by the island Vulcano, with it's steaming fissures and sulfur smell...after a 6 hour journey we finally arrived back on the mainland, still swaying a little.

Carnevale week!! We went out on Tuesday for "Mercoledi Grasso"

Kate and Lisa

circus stomach! some yoga skill there

really good brass band

wonderful circus family

crowd in the campo on mercoledi grasso (mardi gras)

another good band

lots of adorable children dressed up

sipping tea at one of our favorite places, the tea room

view of the duomo from above

roofs

view of siena from above

la torre

this is in montichiello, a tiny town just south of Siena. Kate, Alex, and our new friends Giuglio went there and to piensa on Saturday. beautiful day trip!

stale bread out side

kate sipping wine, basking in the sun

mimosa flowers, beautiful

magical flying sandwich, Piensa is known for it's cheese! The streets smelled like cheese even.

Kate, Alex, and Giulio, enjoying some lunch and views of the Tuscan countryside

view from Piensa

our favorite bar, Bella Vista Social Pub, really delicious mojitos and some specialty drink with ginger. they also have an adorable dog running around.

"sempre dritto"

i am living someone else's life. seriously. this isn't real, i've died and gone to heaven.

last week, early monday morning the whole SIS (Siena Italian Studies) group boarded a bus to head to the Dolomites, via Verona, the mythical home of Romeo and Juliet. we paid a visit to the famous balacony "Romeo, oh Romeo, where for art thou Romeo??" yes that balcony, but in case you didn't know, romeo and juilet are just a figment of Shakespeare's imagination. but hey, what's another tourist trap? the sun finally decided to come out, so it was lovely out. i ate some delicious "fruttà della bosca" gelato, which is basically mixed berry. mmmmm.....

the drive to our hotel, Hotel San Giacomo, was beautiful beyond belief. i love mountains like Hagrid loves Harry, so i sat with my nose smashed against the window the whole time, oohing and aawing. we drove up and up and up and up and up the narrowest switchbacked road i've ever been on to get to out hotel. and then there was a mountain peak right behind our hotel. wow. that night, it was a full moon and you could see everything. the mountain covered in snow glowed silver, the lights of the town down below glittered, and across the valley the light from another town on the mountain were warm stars on a blanket of silver snow. then i decided that i am going to become a ski bum. i will give you more reasoning to this later.

our hotel was fashioned in italian/german/austrian ski lodge style. it also had a spa with a steam room, pool, and sauna. like i said, i am living someone else's life. we all ate dinner together and got served ridiculous amounts of food. the next day, got up early to head to the mountain!!! wooooot!! my friend robyn from colorado is obviously a great skier, so i boarded with her. what an amazing vista once you rode the lift all the way up.. is was snowing the first day, but the next it was sunny so you could see soooooooo much!! breath taking. the second day we found a restaurant on the otherside of the hill, and ate delicious pizza there after a long morning of wonderful shredding. the sun was out and it was a balmy 0 celcius. after lunch with did a couple more runs, one great one that was sort of like a natural half pipe. again, convinced me i need to be a ski bum. that night we all got to go to a local pub in Brentonico, which was great people watching. the northeastern italians have more german influence in them, and they are a totally different people than Tuscans.

Interesting side fact: Italy wasn't unified until 1861, which is very late historically speaking, and at that this only 10% of "Italians" could speak Dantian Italian, the "true" Italian. So all those stereotypes you have about "Italians" yeah, they are probably wrong.

Continuing, thursday we had to leave mountain heaven, 'tear' and head to Trento. spent a few hours there before hopping our train to VENEZIA! (aka venice for all you "ehm" un-cultured american speakers...jk) our hostel was located in Mestre, the nearest town on the mainland. we got so lucky! it was actually th basement of some wonderfully kind folks house. we had a grocery store across the street and a bus stop that took us right into venezia. the bathroom was 70's green tiled. perfect. it was sunny everyday. venezia is an incredible mess of a mystical town. it takes forever to find anything because there is no such thing as a direct route, and if you ask for directions, the only thing they will tell you is "boooh, a sinistra/destra e doppo sempre dritto". which translates to "oh, go left/right and then straight ahead". garaunteed they said "sempre dritto" which does not help when you come to a building and can't. we walked for 6 hours straight on friday. but what a wonderful walk. gondolas, crumbling buildings, people, tourists, San Marco, the most beautiful masks, sun, smells of pizza, fish fresh and not, sewage, cooking sugar, nutella, wafting through the streets. sensory OVERLOAD!

the nine of us at the hostel had fun cooking our own food: gnocchi one night, eggs the other. yum yum. saturday was the first night of carnevale and we all went into venezia aorund 11pm and jenny, maraya, jake and i didn't leave till 5:50 am because we had to miss the last bus back to mestre, so we waited for the first! it was fitting for carnevale. met some great british and spanish people. saw the sun starting to rise and then back to mestre for a mere 2 or fewer hours of sleep....bus, train, another train, another two buses to get back to my little home back in siena. traveling is so tiring! but what a week.

now classes have started and i actually have to do homework....what a novelty.

will add photos soon!

bacio a tutti

sorry these are all jumbled, but it's more exciting that way right!?!

Some colorful lichen in San Gimignano

An aerial view of my bus stop, Piazza del Mercato.  It's also called "La Tartarugone", which literally mean "big tortoise" because the roof looks like a big turtle!  See it??

Market in San G.  All these baskets were full of every delicious dried fruit, candied fruit, marinated olives and mozzarella balls, ecc, that you could ever want.

An olive tree in San G.

La Torre in Piazza del Campo, Siena

Maraya and I in San Gimignano

Me in the Piazza, drinking wine of course

Mattia and Niccolo; don't let those adorable Italian smiles fool you!

Window in the Wall in San Gimignano

San Gimignano

In San Gimignano, looking out over the countryside.

Texture of the wall in San G. This city has a very warm atmosphere, the stones must soak up all the sun and then it emanates from them all year round.

Back in Siena, young and old alike frolic in the Piazza del Campo when the sun comes out!

The city of San G. at dusk.

Good friends, Maraya (from LC, orginally from San Fran.), Robyn (from Colorado), Lisa (from Ohio).

what a giornata

Sorry it's been a while folks!  But we're back with full force!

So where did I leave you last?.... A yes, 

Last weekend I hopped on a bus to San Gimignano, a beautiful medieval town only about an hour away from Siena.  It was finally a sunny nice day!  This town has a bunch of towers and there are a bunch of reasons why, one of which is that since it is a town that used to produce a lot of textile and string, they built the towers to dry long strands of freshly dyed fabric.  The other legend is that competing nobles in the town wanted to see who could built the highest tower...Io non so!  But the image of beautifully dyed skeins (is that the right word??)  of yarn blowing in the breeze is quite lovely!   One thing that is true, is that when town would war, which ever one lost would get all the towers chopped off!! San Gimignano lost along the way, so all the towers are shorter than they used to be!   There was a market going on that day, so all sorts of goodies being sold!  They have a delicious hot nut that is roasted in basically sugar and oil I think, but they smell and taste absolutely delicious!!  There was also a vender with all sorts of dried fruits and olives and cheese marinated in oil, vinegar, ecc, mmmmm........

Sunset was coming so we quickly bought some "cantucci" a delicious traditional cookie of Toscany, and some wine, ran to the highest point we could get to a enjoyed the view!  Absolutely stunning.  All the hills turned different shades of blue/green/aquamarine.  Bellissima!

Watched "Cheeta Gurlzzz" in Italian that night....hahaha.

Wednesday we had a cooking class!  First we made "Papa Pomodoro" which is a delicious slightly spicy soup made with a TON of olive oil, tomato paste, stale bread, basil, a TON of garlic, and salt.  It all get pureed together and is amazing!

Then we made "pici" by hand!  It's just flour, salt, water, and i think a little baking soda/powder and it makes a dough.  then we all rolled out pasta!!  Pici is my favorite because it is really thick.  Also, you can't find it in stores, you have to make it by hand!  We ate it with a pomodoro (tomato) sauce that was also delicious, sort of like the soup, minus the bread.  Next we made "gnocchi" which are a pasta with potato and egg.  They are delicious but VERY rich.  We ate these with gorgonzola sauce, which is gorgonzola cheese, butter, and cream.  Really rich!  I could only eat a few of those!

For dessert it was deep fried dough with a hint of orange, covered in powdered sugar.  Delicious!

So I was stuffed after that!

I've made some pretty good friends here.  Two girls, Lisa and Robyn, from Ohio and Colorado, and awesome.  Robyn is a quiet, outdoorsy girl and Lisa is a vivacious hardworking/hardpartying girl!  They go well as a pair!!  We went out to get "panini" the other night with another girl from LC and it was great.  Note about Italian words:  "panini" doesn't mean "grilled sandwich"  is means plural "sandwiches".  So next time you get one, order one "panino".  And then the server will think you are a big snob! 

Today, I had my first volunteering activity at the Dupre Elementary School, what and experience!!  I got to teach English to little Italian 5th graders!!  They were so cute!!  Especially when trying to say "return-ID".  The teachers haven't decided yet, but right now I might be leading a production of "Robin Hood"!  I only do it once a week, but I'm going to see if I can help with more classes because I love it so much!

Well, going out tonight, tomorrow of to Piensa, a little wine town, and then off to the Alps on Monday!

Still waiting for some letters.....!

love you all troppo!